It all began with a text from my best friend telling me I had a date when we got back from spring break.

That introduction led to a late-night FaceTime call, one that, according to him, I was a little rude on. In my defense, I was out with friends and not exactly prepared to charm some guy I’d never met, through a phone screen. Luckily, it did not scare him off.

When I got back home, after a mandatory week of quarantine imposed by my mom (COVID), we finally met in person at a park just minutes from both of our houses. What was meant to be a simple walk became three laps around the lake, hours of talking -- mainly me, and eventually my mother angrily summoning me home. I went home pleasantly surprised and very excited about what could be the start of something new.

Those early months unfolded in the strange new world of the COVID lockdown, forcing us into a kind of simplicity that made us fall in love in our own little bubble. We found happiness and fun in ordinary things, took trips to the lake, college towns, and built something steady in an uncertain season.

Not long after, that steadiness was interrupted; it was time for us to learn how to navigate long distance at colleges eight hours apart. We spent hours in the car travelling back and forth to each others schools and were able to spend summer back at home together. During our first two years together we experienced many highs and lows, loss, life milestones, and many decisions that would shape our futures.

Like many young love stories, ours was not without growing pains... After college, we moved home and, after two and a half years together, heartbreakingly grew apart and decided to end our relationship.

But that chapter did not end our story, it refined it.

When we found our way back to one another a year later, it was with intention. We often say we didn’t simply get back together; we started over.

In that year apart, we had both grown into the people we needed to become for ourselves and for each other. We learned how to listen, how to fight less and understand more, and how to love in quieter, steadier ways. In many ways, we fell in love all over again; this time deeper, wiser, and certain.

The next year and a half was spent dating intentionally. We both endured Connor's 20 week long bodybuilding prep, a new job, trips, friends' weddings, countless sushi dates, raising a crazy dog, and so much more.

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Though we had gone ring shopping, he still managed to keep the proposal a complete surprise even giving me a false timeline to keep me quiet. I was convinced it would happen during a family trip to Charleston. Instead, under the disguise of my sister’s birthday dinner, he led me back to the very park where we first met.

At the place where our story began, he asked me to spend forever with him.

And as if that weren’t enough, the surprise continued with an engagement party he had secretly planned with our closest family and friends waiting to celebrate with us.

Ours has never been a perfect story, but it has been a real one shaped by timing, distance, heartbreak, growth, and ultimately the choice to keep choosing each other.

And that is the love we cannot wait to celebrate.

Now, as we prepare to get married, what excites us most is not simply the celebration itself, but being with the people we love most to witness the beginning of this next chapter.

This weekend is more than a wedding to us, it is a celebration of the story that brought us here, and of all that is still to come.

With grateful hearts, we cannot wait to celebrate with you!